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| Ellen Holly, James Earl Jones, Rosalind Cash. |
1.
KING LEAR [Dramatic
Revival] A: William Shakespeare; D: Edwin Sherin; S: Santo Loquasto; C: Theoni
V. Aldredge; L: Martin Aronstein; M: Charles Gross; P: New York Shakespeare
Festival; T: Delacorte Theatre (OB); 7/26/73-8/26/73 (28)
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| Rene Auberjonois. |
The first of three revivals of King Lear in the half-decade covered by this series was a
Shakespeare in the Park production starring one of the period’s hottest young
actors, James Earl Jones. Many (but not all) considered his a towering, apposite, and
beautifully controlled performance. It was part of a visually awesome, yet
austere, presentation in “some indeterminate period” mingling images of a
barbaric past and a modernistic future. Santo Loquasto’s décor, in John Simon’s
words, was “a huge, wooden, foot-high platform thrust out like a defiant tongue
from between tall wooden palings, all of them unpainted and some of them
veritable pillars.” Mel Gussow likened the “burnished grey and gold” scenery to
a “gymnasium.” Theoni V. Aldredge’s costumes, using lots of leather, seemed “unsure”
to Simon—“they try to achieve timelessness by ranging from Druidic to Martian.”
Charles Gross’s background music used electronic effects.
Simon accused director Edwin Sherin of stealing many of his
ideas from Peter Brook’s controversial, Jan-Kott-influenced staging of the
play, but rejected the results as “one part weird excogitations, and one part
letting the actors do whatever they can come up with.” Gussow had difficulty
discerning any “sense of unity” or “apparent concept” in the mounting, but Michael
Feingold was loudly enthusiastic about Sherin’s “strongly politicized”
interpretation, one “possibly inspired by Watergate and like events." He was also impressed by the “series of violently formalized stage pictures” used to convey Sherin's ideas.
There was disagreement over the quality of the company, although
most felt the ensemble was weak, despite the presence of several name actors.
Paul Sorvino’s Gloucester was thought a failure, and the Regan and Goneril of,
respectively, Ellen Holly and Rosalind Cash were also disappointing. Tom
Aldredge’s Fool was liked by Gussow, but not thought so well of by most others.
As Edmund, Raul Julia was deemed ineffective, but Rene Auberjonois gave a telling
rendition of Edgar. Solid work was turned in by Douglass Watson as Kent and
Robert Stattel as Albany.
Jones’s Lear met with only grudging respect from Simon, who
took him to task for “Calibanning up” his role with odd vocal inflections, yet
Jones elicited an avalanche of approval from many others. Feingold called him “a
king at once heroic and deflationary. Mr. Jones is not merely a powerful actor;
he has learned to control his power, and make it the more dramatic for seeming
hemmed in.” For Gussow, the white-haired “mellowness” of the interpretation
moved him deeply. “[T]his is one of the most sympathetic Lears I have ever
seen.”
2.
D: David Williams; DS: Alan Barlow i/a/w Brenda Hartill
Moores; L: Howard Eldridge; P: Brooklyn Academy of Music i/a/w Brooklyn College
in the Actors Company Production; T: Brooklyn Academy of Music (OB);
2/2/74-2/24/74 (10)
Note: No photos are available for this production.
Great Britain’s visiting Actors Company, founded as a
democratic cooperative in 1972, produced King
Lear during their four-play repertory season at BAM to mixed reviews. The
opening night performance was on a bare stage in street clothes against dark
curtains, as the sets and costumes had not arrived in time for the performance.
Some found this a valuable occurrence, as it made the play stand forth
unadorned and allowed for critical appreciation of the acting and direction.
The staging was straightforward, with no unusual conceptual notions other than
having Edgar (Ian McKellen) played in several heath scenes with total nudity.
The Brooklyn showing, by the way, was the company’s first of the show anywhere.
Some, like Richard Watts, thought that this was a “brilliant
presentation.” Douglas Watt labeled it “an absorbing account.” And Edith Oliver
noted that “every scene plays.” “[T]his is the Lear of a lifetime. The speeches . . . are delivered with such
emotion and humor and originality that they sound fresh,” she wrote. A few felt
otherwise. John Simon found it “awful and boring,” saying there was not a whit
of novelty in the staging. To him, “The company proved unable to grasp the play’s
grandeur,” and even the walk-ons were “wretched.”
Robert Eddison’s Lear was also the recipient of variant
reactions. Watts dubbed him “magnificent” and Oliver praised him as “completely
believable. . . . [T]here is nothing pathetic here, for even at his maddest and
most feeble he is tragic and always regal.” But for some, he lacked power. Clive
Barnes said there was no “thunder” in his portrayal, the best partscoming during “Lear’s
antic and distracted moments.” Watt observed a dearth of “size and resonance,”
but concluded that it was “a thoughtful, accomplished portrait.” Yet Simon
asserted that Eddison “plays Lear as if he were Polonius, a rather pipsqueaky
Polonius at that.
Ian McKellen, not yet the towering classical actor he would
become, drew attention for his Edgar, taking home a Drama Desk Award for
Outstanding Performance.
3.
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| David Suchet, Tony Church, Lynette Davies. |
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| Sheila Allen, Lynette Davies |
London’s RSC brought New York this abbreviated version of Lear--even its title was pared down to just that name--as part of a four-play touring
repertory season at BAM, but the truncation, created to allow the troupe to
tour easily to schools in England and to make the play comprehensible to
youngsters, met with critical grumbling.
Addressing director-adaptor Buzz Goodbody, John Simon snapped, “buzz off, Miss Dogsbody, and give us back every inch our king.” Edith Oliver complained that Goodbody had “gutted” the drama. Only the acting of Mike Gwilym as Edgar and Louise Jameson as Cordelia were worthy of note, she felt. Characters like Cornwall, Albany, and Oswald had been plucked out, like Gloucester’s eyes, as had much of the Gloucester subplot, leaving a work that Oliver thought had "no form, no magic, no tragedy." Only nine actors took part, among them, David Suchet as the Fool, Roger Bizley as Kent, Jeffrey Dench as Gloucester, Charles Keating as Edmund, Lynette Davis as Regan, and Sheila Allen as Goneril.
Clive Barnes argued that the work suffered a loss of “tragic
grandeur” and “sizable chunks of poetry,” but gained in the new focus on the
actions of Lear, his daughters, Gloucester, Edgar, and Edmund. All had been
reduced to the level of a “domestic tragedy.” “Lear and Gloucester . . . are
not guilty of hubris, merely senility.
Tony Church played Lear “in full but small-scaled detail,”
wrote Barnes. “There is no blaze here, but slow burning embers generate their
own heat.”
